2013 Best in Category: Home & Outdoor Décor

Handy Home Products Inc.

The GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs

Sometimes, intent informs design in such a manner that a product just can’t help but stand out from the crowd, which is the case with the Housewares Design Awards Best in Category winner in Home & Outdoor Décor.

The case of Handy Home Products’ GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs makes just that point. With more consumers developing a taste for outdoor living, some considerations come into question.

One is lighting. It’s one thing to place a candle or lantern on a table. However, more time spent outdoors, especially at night, translates into a greater need for lighting. Those who are enjoying outdoor lifestyles aren’t necessarily planting themselves around a picnic table. They are adding fire pits, pools and other elements that mean they and their guests are moving around a space in the dark. The GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs make that process safer and even just a bit more fun.

The designers approached the development of the GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs with the hope that they could change how people view around public spaces such as local parks, roads, golf clubs, but also in personal spaces such as docks, decks, patios and the like.

What distinguishes the GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs particularly is that they incorporate respect for the outdoors in their very composition. The products don’t require an electrical source, neither from power grid or battery. Active light-absorbent crystals provide the product an illumination source. Given a light charge of only eight minutes, GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs provide glow enough for 48 hours of effective use.

And, at the end of the day, or night, the product doesn’t generate batteries that have to enter the waste disposal system or power plant greenhouse gasses. The products don’t even require the bulbs that small solar powered lights need, and so don’t propagate even that minimal waste.

GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs have a life expectancy of 25 years, producer Handy Home Products related, and so have minimal landfill impact. They provide other benefits besides those related to the environment and leisure. GLOWr Wayfinding Illumination Discs can be a source of emergency illumination. The several natural disasters visited on the United States recently demonstrate that having a source of clean, energy efficient light that will function during an emergency is a design that suits the times.